I know we like to use Scotland as a source of imagery (and in many ways it is a good one), but Sartar is not Scotland. Greg and I have talked about how I think that the hills around Tilden Regional Park (east of Berkeley, California) starting at about the base elevation of the Leavenworth valley in central Washington State would not look out of place in Sartar. Gets us nice cold winters and warm summers. The Leavenworth valley is a rich farming area, surrounded by high mountains (I was driving back from Leavenworth to Seattle on New Year's Day and got caught in a blizzard). The hills around Tilden Regional Park are steep, but support lots of cattle and sheep.
When we were little kids, my brother and I would ask my father (who grew up raising cattle in Colorado) how on earth the cattle could graze on the sides of these steep hills in Contra Costa County without falling down. My dad (who has a great sense of humor) said "it's because their legs are shorter on one side than the other - if they ever went down to flat ground, they'd just fall over."
> > Probably on small sheltered plots where the soil is
> > deeper and oats rather than wheat but cultivation is possible.
> Yeah. That's how and why the hilly parts of Sartar are successful.
And
> that's why population density troubles me.
There's lots of nice valley land to farm in Sartar. I wouldn't worry too much about the population densities - really. I think Greg is pretty firm that the scale in DP:LoT is correct (he said that he's trying to figure out elevations - although the rivers are a lot more turbulent than people might have thought). The population of the Sartarite tribes are pretty darn firm. The densities are high, but not extreme. Basically, Sartar is a bit overpopulated - which might explain why they've got so many damn wandering bands of troublemakers, and why they settled places like the River of Cradles and the Hidden Valley. And why Boldhome is as big as it is.
Jeff
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